You can do without most things (electricity, phones, lunch, taxes…), but water is a must-have. Most people need about 2 litres of water daily for drinking. How many litres do we each need daily for eating? About 2000. Water, its production, use and disposal, is a BIG and growing business worldwide. Water for eating (all that goes into producing food) is only part of this. Producing water for drinking is relatively easy; using it efficiently in irrigation (70% of the world’s water uptake) and industry is harder; treating it to put it safely back into the environment is harder still.
There are no dominant actors in the water business, but Veolia and Suez, both French and merged since 2022, are the biggest and only global operators that both manage water supply and are active in all aspects of its treatment. And their local markets are growing: 45% of Europe’s existing infrastructure needs to be replaced in the next five years. A large percentage of water treatment plants are still being operated below achievable performance.
If you have technology that saves water, produces it more efficiently, or reduces the energy and chemicals that go into treating it, then you have a market in Europe.